Giving Advice

     My protoge asked for my advice.  Before people ran to therapists for everything, the elders of a community were qualified to give advice through their life experience.

     I am not denigrating therapy.  I am paraphrasing baseball pitcher and broadcaster Rick Sutcliffe, who spoke in a recent broadcast about players receiving therapy, there is nothing wrong with having a problem fixed by an expert.

     Advice is not a problem.  If you ask five people, you might get six answers, only because certain things differ.  In a traditional village, there might have been less variation in experience.  For certain things though, experience is a great teacher.

Yerbie is Afraid of Sneezes.

     I let out with a blast of a sneeze.  Lucy just sat on the bed as though nothing happened.  Yerbie took off as if shot out of a cannon.  Ten minutes later he approached me.  Some great hunter, lol!  The Sudanese guys were right.  Yerbie as lion?  No.

Congressional Health Care Bill.

     Two people sent me info saying the bill calls for euthanasia for seniors on page 425 of the bill.  I read the page.  I saw things about living wills and discussing options.  Nothing said anything about forced euthanasia, though admittedly, the bill was so vague, you could almost read into it what you wanted.  That and writing down all the things that were scratched out and changed, I remember why by-laws committees in organizations are not my thing.  

     The Conservative media got this one wrong, well at least at this point in time.  I can’t believe anyone read the entire thing, all 1018 pages of it.

     No wonder Congress gets certain things passed.

Psychology of African Exploration.

I am still doing research for a possible novel about an African explorer, after watching Exploration Africa.  I am using Frank McLynn’s Hearts of Darkness.  I read his book on the events leading up to the American Revolution and enjoyed it.

The book is giving me all sorts of ideas.  Still have to piece them together.

Drunk Camels?

In reading Frank McLynn’s book about African exploration Hearts of Darkness, he mentions camels drinking too much water too fast at an oasis, then eating dates from the palm trees.

Bottom line,  the camel’s stomach ferments all this and the camels get drunk.

Are camels mean drunks?

Henry Louis Gates Arrest

I am only going to sum up my view, enough has been reported about this.  I was only pushed to write my views when I saw the news story ab0ut the neighbor who called police and how people are calling her a racist and some have threatened her.

Dr. Gates said she did nothing wrong and is a good neighbor.  Also, no one questions there has been nasty profiling.  Having said that, the African American police sgt. who responded said  there was no profiling, the President met with Dr. Gates and the police officer, the President admitted his first remarks were wrong.

What more does everyone want?  Will poor Mrs. Whelan be a good neighbor again?  It might make me think twice.

Don’t make noise until you know all the facts.

25th Anniversary Silver Wedding Anniversary

Today is my 25th Wedding Anniversary.  We had takeout Chinese food.  (We had Chinese food for our first date).

Now think of Fiddler on the Roof,  Do you love me?  What?!   Or the novelist Thomas Carlyle, who said he and his wife had to marry each other to keep two other people from being miserable.
All kidding aside, it has been great.  No marriage is all roses.

I expect to post about my fiftieth.

Uncle Walter.

     When I was a child, he was the man who we all trusted with the news.  Not blow dried, but an avuncular man who just told the story.  As Brian says in Life of Brian, “We must all figure it out for ourselves!” 

     What I knew about the Vietnam War at the time was what I learned on the news.  It was how Walter Cronkite started the news every night. 

     Even, when he was no longer an anchorman, his Renaissance Man demeanor took us all sorts of places.  Technology, New Years in Vienna, sailing, the Grateful Dead, you would be amazed.

     His body is being buried today.  His spirit will always be there.  The mold was broken with him.

     And THAT’S the way it was. 

The End of Macho

This is a recent article in Foreign Policy magazine about how women are going to be doing better than men in the new economy.

I am not going to reprint the article, you can read it.  What is a knight in tarnished armor like me supposed to do?  My Hungarian friend Linda told me I could not bring a firearm into Hungary.  Some cowboy I would be! ;p

The end of  Macho?  Lord have mercy, what am I gonna do?   Wait a minute.  I take orders now, what am I talking about LOL!

Swearing as Pain Relief

This was on Palin’s Travels. To read the article, click on Scientific American.

This is what I posted though.

If you swear all the damn time, the words lose their #(%)## impact!